Amazon doesn’t make it easy to publish a physical book. It took me several hours of cursing to get the cover right – on the upside, I am learning quite a bit about Photoshop, but man…I remember when all I had to do was size up a picture and make a front cover, then make the back cover and check to see it was the right size. Now I have to measure the picture, put it on a blank canvas in Photoshop – and I stumbled onto doing that by accident. I think that I might hire out someone to do all of this.

On the upside – all the DYI means that both The Dreaded Day Job and The Catastrophic Christmas Party are making small profits. Very small. It’s the little things like that that keep me going.

I’m still outlining The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show. It’s a super detailed outline for me. I am finding that if I don’t outline, my story simultaneously meanders and quickens. It is weird, but with the outline, I am putting in everything that happens so I don’t forget. This is going to be my first “epic fantasy” novel. This is the genre that I am looking to make my name in. Don’t get me wrong. I love writing about Evan and his issues, but I want to be up there with Sanderson and Tolkien…or that’s where my ambition lies. Skill? Well…we’ll see.

Well, that’s it for now – the thrilling life of a self-published author isn’t as glamorous as one wishes it were. I do need to update the site to show that I have new books out there. *sigh* Technology is a fickle, moody dominatrix. Have fun everyone – talk to you later.

There isn’t much positive news beyond I’ve sold some copies of The Catastrophic Christmas Party and The Dreaded Day Job. I feel like such a hot-house orchid when it comes to writing sometimes. I’ll have something for next week.

I am beyond thrilled right now. I just sold two books today. Sure – it’s not the millions I want, but this month is starting out better than last month. I hope to keep this momentum going – perhaps I can get some more sales for February of some of my other works.

I am almost done with Voices Abroad. I know I’ve said that a lot, but this time I really mean it. I am on the last chapter and there are no other chapters I need to go back and re-do. When I am done, I am done with this book and will let it sit for editing purposes. I might get back to it in a couple of months. Maybe I’ll let Nancy read it to see what she thinks. I might also go on ahead and print up The Show Must Go On first and have her read it. I’m hoping to get it done and ready for primetime by Hallowe’en.

This year is going to be the year of epic fantasy, but next year, I think I am going to focus solely on Evan’s books. Try to pump out a book a month – which is completely doable (where have I heard that before?) because they’re not supposed to be over 50,000 words. I’m basically going to be doing Nanowrimo once a month, every month. I can get them read and edited quickly – might even be able to release the same month I write. So far, Evan’s books are the big sellers, so it makes sense for me to try to pump those out. Epic fantasy books are being written with the goal of larger publication in mind, but the Evan books might end up being my bread and butter. I can live with that.

I am still pumped up to write Medicine Show – I’ve been getting some inspiration from The Last Podcast on the Left. Listening to their episodes about the Black Death has been giving me ideas concerning scenes that I would want to see in the book. I should consider getting a couple more books for research’s sake. I’ll put off the Gothic Trailer Park story for a little while – I have a book to read on the poetics of Gothic literature and that’s going to take a while.

This year is looking up for me! I hope I can get more stuff out there, and I keep on selling the things I have. I hope this year goes as well for you, too, Dear Reader.

Well…it looked really good flying overhead…

I missed the deadline, but on the upside I’m under 10,000 (8,167 words to be exact – a chapter and a half) words remaining. Now, if it’s going to be finished under ten thousand words is another question. One I can’t really answer right now. I know what the ending is going to be, but I don’t know how to get there. Y’know – typical author things.

I am going to stick with the schedule I have in my head and start outlining The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show during my lunch period. In the morning and evening I am going to put down my seven hundred words to keep going. I will be somewhat optimistic and say that this first draft will be finished by the end of the month.

No, really.

This year is going to be the year of Epic Fantasy. I am only work on two books: the aforementioned Medicine Show and Unbound – my really epic ‘Frankenstein Meets Lord of the Rings while cosplaying a Larry McMurtry novel’ series. These two books are definitely going to sent out to publishers. These are too good to risk self-publishing. Wish me luck!

I am really excited about starting these two books. Well, starting is not the right word. “Concluding” would be more accurate. I’ve have Unbound in my head since the middle to late nineties and Medicine Show is at least five years old. Yes, I take my time in putting books together, but the ones I do get together are really good.

Speaking of putting books together: Catastrophic Christmas Party is out on Kindle right now and will be put into paperback by the end of next week. I just need to re-format the manuscript for paperback printing. There’s a lot to get straight and it’s going to take a full day. I’ve done it before and let me tell you – it’s a pain in the butt, but I can at least tell someone “you don’t read e-books? That’s okay – it’s in paperback.”

So – this year is going to be super-productive, I’m sure. I got books finished, and I even got a book out there for sale. I can carry this momentum over to this year and get these two big books finished. Wish me luck.